Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (5)

Welcome to a future where everybody's happy. Independent thought
and feelings have been banished and genetic engineering, brain washing
and drugs keep the population docile and comfortable. But several
characters dare to ask the question, "Wouldn't you like to be free to be
happy in your own way?"

Huxley has isolated the fundamental conflict in Human History--the conflicting
impulses towards Security and Freedom. In the Brave New World, the
impulse towards Security has won and there is no Freedom.

The problem for advocates of Freedom is that it includes the freedom
to be unhappy. For this reason, many find it unattractive and the
fight for Freedom is always an uphill struggle. At the time
that Huxley and George Orwell were writing, it seemed entirely possible
that Socialism, Communism & Fascism and all of the ism's that
promise Security would vanquish Freedom. We are fortunate to live
at a time when Freedom is resurgent, but Brave New World is a cautionary
tale about what's at stake in the struggle.

Comments:

No, we are insufficiently repressed.

- oj

- Apr-23-2004, 11:14

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I find it curious that you should find the current situation of the United States so alien to Huxleys Brave New World. In my opinion it is even closer than communism was. Under Communism you knew that you were being repressed, but under the modern social system of neoliberalism, most individuals are kept so ignorant that they do not realise that they are being repressed, and indead seek out activities that will keep them ignorant. Does this not seem more like the Brave New World than Huxleys proposal?

Huxleys world seems less of a warning and more of a prophesy every day.